There aren’t many amps out there that have managed to appeal to players for 20 years.

The Peavey 6505 is one of the few that have.

While the 120-Watt 6L6GC powered 6505 will always be a favorite of the old school, the new school is still plugging in and finding new tones in this two-channel classic amp. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 6505, TheToneKing.com took the chance to talk with Peavey about the amp that continues to leave its mark in the history of rock.

When Peavey initially released the 6505 as Edward Van Halen’s signature amp the 5150, everybody and their mother was stoked about it. It didn’t take long for Marshall JCM 900’s to be replaced with the signature black and chrome façade of the Peavey favorite. Initially, the amp seemed like it was geared towards those looking to emulate the unique EVH rock tone. But, once some of the metal guys took the 6505 for a spin, Peavey’s amp was being used by some of the most brutal bands of the 90’s.

“The 6505 was one of the first guitar amplifiers to give players access to extreme amounts of gain in a single head format,” notes Hartley Peavey, founder and CEO of Peavey Electronics. Which not only explains EVH’s melt-your-face off leads, but might also explain why metal players gravitated towards the 6505. “That’s when artists like Robb Flynn of Machine Head, and producers like Colin Richardson (Machine Head, As I Lay Dying, Carcass, Trivium) and Andy Sneap (Megadeth, Testament, Opeth, Arch Enemy, Mother-Freaking Exodus!) began using it.”

While it’s a mainstay today, when the 6505 first hit the streets, droptuning was kind of a new thing: Players started forging new territory by dropping far beyond the ½ – step threshold that had been big during the 80’s. Metal players found that, even with the heavy downtuning, Peavey’s 6505 gave them the gain and the punch they were looking for without sacrificing clarity.

“People credit various parts of our design for it, but our patented Resonance circuit played a key role by allowing players to keep the extreme low end tight and brutal. Resonance alters the ‘damping factor’ around the speaker’s resonant peak—in effect, it controls the transient response of the loudspeaker. You see, the higher an amp’s damping factor, the more control the amp exerts over the speaker. Resonance reduces that damping factor at lower frequencies, causing dramatic changes to the low-end response and allowing the speaker to recreate the low frequencies with clarity and punch. One of the things that Robb Flynn (Machine Head) has pointed out is how the midrange clears up and tightens the low end—and he tunes down to B, so that’s something!”

On top of being the go-to amp for some of Modern Metal’s biggest artists, the 6505 was versatile enough that it was also being used by rock legend Ted Nugent and Bo Garrett of country music’s Montgomery Gentry. While maintaining a unique ‘sound,’ the 6505 still had a broad enough range to cover everything from the blistering metal of Machine Head to the familiar throaty wail of Uncle Ted to the twang of a duo of country gents.

“By dialing back the gain, you can have that trademark growl with greater clarity and dynamics, which make it great for hard rock and even mainstream rock.”

It’s also important to note that, while the name has changed, the 6505 is still the same recipe as the 5150.

“The “65” comes from our founding year, 1965, and we derived the “05” from the year of the relaunch, 2005. Ironically, after the name change we sold far more 6505s than we ever did 5150s!”

While the original specs remain the same, Peavey has expanded the 6505 line to include other versions of the iconic amp.

The 6505+ expands on the original 6505 design by giving both channels independent EQ, Resonance, and Presence controls, making it easier for players to dial in their rhythm and lead channels individually.

Then, there’s the 6534. If you couldn’t tell by the name, the 6534 puts EL34 tubes into the Power amp section to give the amp a bit more of a “British flavor.”

The 6505 and the 6505+ both come in 60-Watt combo versions. A 6505 212 Combo includes two 12” Sheffield speakers, and the 6505+ 112 Combo comes with one 12” speaker.

For the cherry on top of a metal sundae, Peavey makes a 6505 4×12 300-Watt speaker cabinet. Specifically designed to accentuate the qualities of the 6505 head, the cabinet is fitted with four 12” Sheffield 1200 speakers.

Peavey’s 6505 series speaks to a need for versatility. According to Peavey, there is a reason why bands like August Burns Red and Bullet For My Valentine make the 6505 the main weapon in their arsenal. “Quite frankly, the 6505 wouldn’t have such a huge audience of fans if it weren’t adaptable to players’ individual styles.”

Rolling back on either the Pre or Post gain knobs changes the character of the tone as well as ‘backing off’ the gain. While many amps try, and usually fail, to keep the same ‘tone’ at all stages of gain, Peavey realizes that this doesn’t create a dynamic amplifier.

Peavey doesn’t call the Post-Gain knob a Volume.

Because it’s not!

A volume simply increases or decreases the level of sound, while the Post-Gain control changes the dynamic and character of that sound. The result is the ability to create a wide variety of tones within the same Pre-Gain parameters. Basically, if there’s a tone that you want to get out of Peavey’s 6505, you’ll probably be able to find it.

Peavey has been friends of TheToneKing.com since we put out our first vids. It’s good to see that the old school favorite, the 6505, is the choice of the new bloods out there. There aren’t many amps that can say that they’ve been the choice of several generations of guitar players. And, from the looks of it, the legend that is the 6505 will probably out last us all.

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About the Author: Marc published his first novel Becoming in 2010. It’s a kick-ass book with monsters and dreams and stuff, and you should buy it. Since then, he’s written thousands of articles for TheToneKing.com, many of which have been picked up for circulation by manufacturers and other news outlets.
His next book, Drugs and Pancakes, should be available early 2014 if his alcoholic editor can find time to work on it in-between destroying his liver and screaming about punctuation. He graduated from Roosevelt University with honors, which means that he’s not as dumb as he looks.
He’s been playing guitar for over 25 years, which is almost twice as long as most of his students have been alive.

Comments (4)

I really appreciate the YouTube gear reviews you’ve been cranking out TK! I’ve been a peavey fan since 95′, the year I got my first Peavey, an Encore 1×12 combo. It was first “real” amp and it was a joyous thing! Later, I picked up a peavey supreme 160 half stack and life was soooo good! Now I’m about to pick up 6505 2×12 combo from an individual owner and I feel like such a kid again. I’m excited, can hardly sleep and find myself daydreaming about this upcoming weekend when I get to bring my baby home! Love Peavey and mad respect for TK! Your playing is also getting noticeably better. Keep it real bro!

GREAT amp! Anything with ‘Peavey’ on the front is bulletproof. Even some 70’s-esque retro bands have used the 6505 in a medium-gain flavor, like Spiritual Beggars and Grand Magus, both from Sweden. That speaks loads for it’s versatility, as stated in the excellent article.

Great article Mark…through the years ever since my last Fender Twin died on me right in the middle of a gig back in the late 70’s. I bought my first Peavey DUECE 2×12 combo and it was magic. Also 120 watt tube amp with 4 x 6L6’s powered.

Then about 4 years later after that amp took tons of road abuse and basically got the crap beat out of it. It was time for a new amp again. My choice was easy at that time and I then bought a new Peavey Mace VT amp model and it had 160 watts powered by 6x 6L6’s tubes with 2 x 12’s that came loaded with Peavey Black Widow Speakers. OMG…without a doubt one of the most powerful amps I had ever owned. This amp saw the road but it was kept well protected.

To this day I hate myself for selling that Peavey Mace which was still absoluteute mint condition for what I consider the small fee of only $375 bucks with the Black Widow’s plus this model had a phase shifter circuit built into it. PLUS,like the older DUECE model you could use both channels on it at the same time via the Peavey’s afoot-switchtch which came with each amp as standard. Later in the mid 80’s I bought a small 65 watt 1×12″ Peavey Bandit all solid state model but I then sold that as it was a nice little amp but it just wasn’t like my DUECE or MACE Peavey Amps.

Well after all of these years and watching our good pal The Tone King do some nice demo’s of both the Peavey Vypyr
Solid state 75 watt model and using the Sanpera II pedal as well as doing the shoot outs of the smallest 15 watt Peavey Vypyr against both the Line 6 and Fenders Mustang modeling amps. I was totally convinced that a Peavey Vypyr would be my next great gigging amp.

So this past Labor Day weekend I dialed up a Guitar Center and I bought the Peavey 120 Tube Vypyr amp plus I also bought the larger Sanpera II pedal. I even bought a nice new AMP STAND for it to hold it up closer to my eyes so I can try out all of the modeling amp settings and of course the 6550 amp setting is one of them along with plenty of other well known Peavey models and Fender Models as well as those stacked British Plexi models and a couple of other COOL ASS models such as the German Diezel and a Mesa Dual Rectifier model plus a Kranenstein model.

I could go on and on. The reason I bought the Tube version over the 100 watt 2×12 Solid State model is because I wanted that tube sound plus because the Solid State model didn’t have the feature of a 16 ohm LINE OUT for hooking the amp up to another speaker cabinet. So I just had to spend the extra bucks for not only the TUBE SOUND but did I mention that this also has not only the 4 x 6L6’s but it also has a nice little 12AX7 in it too.

The volume controls go up to 13 on this bad boy too..LOL and I can barely keep the volume past 1 1/2 before the walls and the floor starts to shake. This things a MONSTER amp.

I want to thank The Tone King and all of the good guys at Peavey for making such GREAT amps for all of these years as they basically make all types of models with something for everyone and yet they still keep on improving on them constantly.

Once again I too now feel that with my new Peavey Amp that I’m “Still Brual After All Tese Years” as well!!!
Terry